“To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice to it,” wrote Edmund Burke of the French Revolution. The Republicans – not including Sen. Susan Collins – who voted to block the bipartisan Jan. 6 riot investigation into the gravest assault on our democracy since the War of 1812 have become accomplices of the mob invaders of our Capitol.

After the invading British troops had set fire to the U.S. Capitol in 1814, the Senate chamber was left “a most magnificent ruin.”

After last week’s vote, the Senate is left a disfigured ruin, occupied by co-conspirators.

Robert F. Lyons
Kennebunk